OnLive drops subscription fees

Cloud-gaming service OnLive has announced it is to scrap its planned monthly $4.95 charge entirely.

OnLive charges users to buy temporary or permanent access to its streaming games for PC and Mac, but has suffered criticism for its high pricing.

The removal of the subscription fee follows an offer to scrap the cost for a year for early adopters and also means new users may sign up without having to enter payment details.

This means the service now operates in a free trial mode, enabling non-paying users to try out demos and watch other users' games.

"We're delighted to be able to offer the OnLive Game Service without a base monthly fee on an ongoing basis," said OnLive CEO Steve Perlman.

"There is no precedent for OnLive, so we had to grow to a large number of active users in order to assess usage patterns and operating costs. We've arrived at that stage, and as we had hoped, we are able to operate OnLive without charging a fee for access."